‘We can’t hold our new little grandson’
Lockdown agony of new grandparents
FROM the moment they learnt their daughter was pregnant, Mike and Diane Kenny counted down the weeks until they would meet their first grandson.
And when Theodore Kenny-Conroy arrived on March 20, they were delighted to hear their daughter Natasha had given birth to a happy and healthy baby.
But the maiden grandparents are yet to experience that amazing first snuggle with a delicate newborn - because little Theo was born on the cusp of the coronavirus lockdown.
Like many grandparents, they have missed the first three weeks of their grandchild’s life.
Diane, 62, a pharmacist worker from Reddish, said: “It’s heartbreaking. absolutely heartbreaking. Not being able to hold him has been a major thing. It’s just awful really.
“We’ve all been waiting for this baby for so long.
“Every so often we Facetime but it’s not like being with him. We just want a cuddle, that would be so lovely.”
Diane would also like to be there to support her daughter Natasha, 30, a critical care nurse now on maternity leave.
She added: “I worry for them, both locked up in there with the baby. They can’t go anywhere, nobody can go in.”
Theo’s grandfather Mike, a tax accountant, 62, added: “We are absolutely over the moon and we’ve all been looking forward to it.
“Natasha and Scott informed us last August and from then to now we’ve just been counting the days to little Theo coming along.
“Not meeting him in person is very frustrating. Our younger daughter Natalia is 18 and has been so excited, she just wants to give him a big cuddle like we all do.
“Diane is terrified of catching the virus because she has diabetes and is suffering a lot of anxiety.
“We just console ourselves that it’s for the best, lockdown is the thing to do.
“We are just happy they are out of the way of this virus, they aren’t putting themselves at risk and we’re not putting them at risk.”
The separation has also been tough on Theo’s mum Natasha Kenny, 30, who was still in Stepping Hill when the official lockdown began.
She and partner Scott Conroy, 32, a teacher whose parents are waiting to be able to visit from Wales - were not allowed visitors and Natasha says she’s felt a range of emotions around having a baby at such an extraordinary moment in history.
The new mum, from Reddish, said: “Theodore is amazing, the most important thing is that he’s healthy.
“But one of the emotions that’s hard to deal with is the guilt.
“I feel guilty that I’m not at work helping colleagues. I feel guilty my family can’t come and see Theo. I feel guilty that I might be putting his health at risk.”
Natasha was induced on March 16, but Theodore took four days to arrive, and Natasha says her time in hospital was ‘terrifying’.
She added: “The staff were amazing but under so much pressure trying to keep everybody safe.
“I was allowed one person as a birth partner, and I’d really wanted my mum to be able to come and go. There were complications so to have had that support would have been good.
“Staff were so stretched. We didn’t see anyone except the midwife because we were all restricted to staying in our own rooms.”
The couple say they are now loving having Theo at home - but Natasha says she’s still missing her mum.
She added: “We’d hoped to see our parents, his parents - we thought it would be all hands on deck. Actually we’re kind of isolated in the house.”
She added: “Neither of us have done this before and the services are so cut that we can’t have a health visitor round everything’s just being done on the phone but NHS staff have been amazing looking after us without coming round.
“We have so much respect for everyone on the front line.”
She added: “I feel sad that my parents haven’t been able to hold Theodore, there’s lots of calls but you can’t smell a newborn’s head on a video call.
“He’s the first grandchild in the family and everybody’s just waiting to meet him.”